"Expert" in hunting wild rats reveals effective trapping techniques

Dusk has fallen over Kon Plinh village (Kon Pne commune, Kbang district, Gia Lai), this is also the time when groups of indigenous people take turns going up the mountain to hunt wild rats.

In big cities, wild rats are a strange, scary and unwelcome dish, but in the "oasis" of Kon Pne, this dish is considered a specialty of the mountains and forests.

The natives in Kon Pling village will choose to set mousetraps near their crops.

Following the "expert" Ior (35 years old, living in Kon Plinh village) into the forest to hunt rats, we saw how skillful the natives are in setting bamboo traps to lure rats.

No need for modern iron traps, simply makeshift bamboo sticks have been woven together and these traps are placed on each mouse path. However, many cunning wild mice cannot escape that strange trap.

No need to use modern iron traps, people here simply use bamboo sticks to trap mice.

Sharing his experience in trapping wild rats, Mr. Ior said: “When trapping rats in the forest, you just need to weave bamboo sticks together and make a pin at the bottom so that when the rat runs across the trap, it will collapse and the prey will be caught. Setting these bamboo traps is quite simple, almost like setting bird traps.

The important thing is to find a place to set the trap, and place it on the paths where the rats run. Normally, we should choose places with a lot of people's crops to set the trap because this season, wild rats often destroy people's rice and cassava. There are a lot of wild rats, so when they go to find food, their path is almost like a trail, so just put the trap on those trails and the rats will fall into the trap themselves."

A native is instructing a foreign visitor how to trap wild rats.

It is known that wild rat meat is currently a specialty dish of the "oasis" Kon Pne. Besides entertaining guests from far away, wild rat meat is also a daily salty dish of the local people here.

Wild rats can be used to make many delicious dishes such as galangal mixed with fermented rice, bamboo shoot stir-fry, cooked with green bananas... However, the best dish is still wild rat meat grilled over charcoal.

A fat mouse fell into the net.

Wild rats are usually larger than field rats, many of them reaching 500-700g, some even reaching nearly 1kg. “Wild rat meat is not only non-toxic but also very clean because it eats rice, wheat on the fields and wild fruits. After trapping wild rats, the first thing to do is to use dry straw to burn the skin until it turns yellow before further processing. Next, the rat's body is washed clean, drained and processed into many different dishes. Usually, my family often cooks galangal mixed with fermented rice and bamboo shoot soup…”, Mr. Ior added.

Ior's results after the trip were fat mice.

According to Mr. Ior, the best time to set a mouse trap is around 5pm, when the mice start to leave their holes to look for food. After setting the trap, around 8pm, they will check and collect the trap. On average, each evening like this, they will catch over 10 mice, sometimes even 20 mice. The most is during the harvest season, when rice or wheat is harvested...

The latch under the trap helps to hold the prey when it falls into the hunter's net.